4 AM Forever
by Mistress Arsonist
Summary: Chris has just lost Bianca and is trying to grieve. A songfic to 4 AM Forever by Lostprophets.


**4 AM Forever**

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. I hate to admit it, but I have no claim whatsoever to Chris, Bianca or the lyrics I'm using from the wonderful, unbelievably awesome band that is Lostprophets, those were written by Ian Watkins, and Chris and Bianca are the property of whoever now owns the rights to Charmed, which is sadly not me either.

**Summary:**

A songfic in which Chris has just lost Bianca and is trying to grieve. To the lyrics to 4AM Forever.

**AN:** Hey there whoever you are that clicked the blue button thingy (thanx by the way). This was an idea that came to me one day ages ago, I wanted to use this song somehow and this is what I came up with, I hope you enjoy, please read & review.

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Chris was in the back room of P3, having just lost the love of his life. He was up against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest, head buried in his arms. He couldn't think, couldn't move, and he was trying his very best not to feel. It was the early hours of morning after he'd got back from the future. Alone. His eyes were red-rimmed, hair unkempt, and his clothes ripped and bloodied.

In his turmoil, he saw no option other than to orb to the underworld and try to do as much damage to whatever he could find as possible. For so long, demon hunting had been his main outlet when his emotional baggage reached full capacity. But now. It was just different. Confusing. He'd lost people that mattered before, no question there. People he was close to and cared for. He figured he should have been prepared for this. But no matter what he did, nothing went away, the pain wouldn't numb, and he still felt just as angry, lonely, lost, broken, and pain-infested as he'd felt the moment he realized that he'd actually lost her. So he orbed back to the backroom of his charge's club, hoping for some time alone, just wanting some peace that his little outing in the underworld had failed to give him.

_**Yesterday I lost my closest friend  
Yesterday I wanted time to end  
I wonder if my heart will ever mend  
I just let you slip away**__**  
4 AM forever**_

He couldn't believe it. He'd just left her there.

To die.

All alone.

Well, not quite all alone. What he'd done was far worse than that. All she'd had for company was The Source. He could only guess what he'd done to her in her last moments. He knew, he just _knew_ he'd made her suffer, filled her with misery. No doubt made her scream in agony before the light completely left her eyes. He didn't even kiss her once more, couldn't even give her that last action of affection.

He'd hated the sound of her voice when she'd said her last words to him. The broken, tired, rasping in her tone. The strength, the certainty, the confident power he was so accustomed to was gone. All he wanted to do was hold her close to him, caress her hair, whisper into her ear that he'd take care of her, that she was safe, that he was there.

But he couldn't.

Not now.

Never again.

She was gone.

_**Maybe I'll never see you smile again  
Maybe you thought that it was all pretend;  
All these words that I could never say  
I just let them slip away  
4 AM forever**_

Piper walked into the room, hearing him orb in. She'd waited for him, Leo had agreed to look after Wyatt Up There for a while, and Phoebe and Paige had orbed off to their respective spouses earlier that night. She'd decided to wait around at P3 for him to get back. She knew the type of pain he was in, and that he shouldn't really be made to cope with it on his own, that would just be too cruel, no matter how many secrets he'd kept from them.

When she walked into the room, Chris was up against the wall so tightly that he was almost invisible at first. Then she heard a sniffle, spun on her heel, and almost tripped over when she saw her whitelighter, well her witchlighter, in his current state.

Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined she would see Chris in such a position. It was in that second that she realized exactly how human he was, how vulnerable. How much more must there be to him than had shown through during his time here? She wondered.

"Chris?" She called, too flabbergasted to think of much else. "Chris, are you ok?" He looked up at her, only just noticing her presence in the room before lowering his gaze to the ground in front of him. He was so unlike the young man she'd known for the last few months, he was so defeated, depressed and, well, broken. It wrenched at her insides.

No one should have to feel what he was feeling now, nobody. She'd lost a sister, a mother, and a grandmother, but never Leo, her soul-mate. Okay, so they weren't together anymore, but at least he was still alive, there was still a chance, but she knew, she just knew, that if she actually lost him, she'd never come back from where it would send her. So it was with that in mind, how much she knew Bianca must have meant to him, that she was in her club in the early hours of the morning. Waiting to be there for Chris if and when he needed her. She may not have liked him a great deal before, but she was human for crying out loud, compassion was just part of her nature.

"What happened to you?" She asked, her voice easily giving away her shock at his condition.

"She's gone." He rasped, his voice wounded and barely above a whisper. If it was possible, Piper was even more astonished at the sudden, unfairly fast, transformation that had taken place in her witchlighter. "I couldn't do anything to help her. Couldn't catch her, couldn't break her fall, couldn't clear the area so that she just landed on the floor instead of-" he broke off, unable to complete the sentence. Not capable of making it true.

He felt a new bout of tears surge up to the backs of his eyes. Normally he would have forced himself to suppress them with a vengeance, but now. Everything was just so different.

It was as though she had given him far more than just love and support, she gave him so much more that he didn't notice, he didn't think she even noticed. Now she was gone, he was alone, and he had no reason whatsoever to bother trying to appear the strong, cocky, confident whitelighter he'd been masquerading as for the last several months. He let the tears fall. He surrendered to the pain, too tired to keep fighting any longer.

_**Why don't you hear me when I'm calling out to you (to you)  
Why don't you listen when I try to make it through (to you)  
Goodbye, goodbye  
Goodbye, you never know  
Hold a little tighter  
4 AM forever**_

Piper had no idea what to think. Chris was crying. Before now, she had never seen him show an ounce of weakness, never. She just didn't think it was in him. Nevertheless, seeing him here, crying his eyes out, almost choking on his anguish showed her exactly how wrong she was. How much he just hadn't allowed them to know about himself. In fact, before now she had no idea he even knew how to feel emotions as strong as the ones he was expressing so openly before her.

Just as quickly as his tears came, they started to subside. His breathing returned to a more regular rate but the emotional stream still trickled from his eyes, and he pulled his knees back up to his chest placing his arms on them, his chin resting on top of those. All in all, he seemed more stable than he had a few seconds ago, and Piper relaxed slightly. Only slightly. She knew from experience that even though he may seem to be pulling himself together, he was in absolute turmoil inside.

"You went out hunting, didn't you?" She found herself asking, not quite sure where she was going to go with this; she just knew she had to get him talking, try to keep him within the realm of sanity. She could see how close to the edge he was, she couldn't just stand there and let him fall.

"What's it to you? I go out hunting all the time." He replied, voice quivering, his body still shaking, this time he failed to acknowledge her, his eyes instead glued to the floor.

'Did it help?" She asked, understanding exactly what he'd done and why.

"No." He answered blankly. "It didn't. It's weird, normally demon-hunting's a great way to blow off steam, normally makes me feel a million times better when I'm done, but tonight it didn't do that. I don't get why. It's always worked without fail before, when other people had-" He stopped. He knew it was true, he knew it had happened, but he just couldn't say that word. He couldn't.

_**Maybe one day when I can move along  
Maybe someday when you can hear this song  
You won't let it slip away  
4 AM forever**_

Piper then found herself walking over and sitting down next to him. She knew she had to get him to say it, even though he was in a dreadful way, and she almost couldn't bring herself to, she had to get him to admit what had happened to her. It was the only way he could eve start the healing process.

"When other people had what Chris?" She asked, trying to ease him into answering the question, trying to keep him grounded.

For a few moments he just sat there, trying to hide from what she was saying behind his arms, but eventually he withdrew his head, and stared vacantly across the room, not really seeing the wall opposite him.

"When they'd died."

There, he'd said it. And as soon as he had, another bout of steaming, raw pain poured forth from his eyes and he yet again gave into the convulsive waves of agony that shook his body.

Piper then reached over, and drew him into a hug, to her surprise, one which Chris didn't shy away from. He let his head fall on her shoulder as he suffered the cascading tumult that erupted from his eyes, originating from deep inside his heart.

_**And I'd wish the sun would never come  
It's 4 AM and you are done  
I hope you know you're letting go  
It's 4 AM and I'm alone**_

It wasn't too long after this until the exhaustion of the day, both physical and psychological, overtook him and he fell asleep slumped against the wall, and Piper called Leo to orb them back to the manor and they laid him on the sofa in the living room and covered him with a blanket. A decision to which Leo felt immediate shock, but came to his senses as soon as he saw the witchlighter's condition. Even in his sleep he was so obviously troubled that both wondered what he was dreaming, and at the same time, were glad they didn't know.

Several hours later found Piper in the kitchen preparing breakfast for her entire household, plus one, which she sadly realized, was just her Wyatt, Leo if he chose to appear, and Chris. And Wyatt was still fast asleep, and in all honesty, she doubted weather Leo would turn up this morning, as much as she wished he would.

She was rather disturbed by the unnerving silence the manor seemed to possess when there were so few people living in it, making her jump so much she nearly dropped an egg when she heard Chris's approaching footsteps coming from the living room.

"Hi" She said as he entered the room, or rather stopped at the doorway. "Do you want some breakfast?" She asked.

"No thanks, I'm not that hungry." He answered, "I just figured I'd tell you before I go that I'm heading out. I'm not sure when I'll be back, and I'm even less sure weather I'll be able to hear you, incase you need to call." He said.

He was making a conscious effort, she noticed, to keep his tone of voice as neutral as it had ever been since he'd arrived. He was trying to retreat away from the pain. She knew what he was headed out to do as well. The very same thing she'd done. And she knew he'd get no satisfaction from that. She knew his pain would not lessen if he tried to shift the rage.

_**Why don't you hear me when I'm calling out to you (to you)  
Why don't you listen when I try to make it through (to you)  
Goodbye, goodbye  
Goodbye, you never know  
Hold a little tighter**_

"Chris." She called as soon as the floating lights started to encircle him.

"What is it?" He asked as he reformed.

"You really should eat something. When was the last time you had a decent meal anyway? You never eat anything I cook for dinner around here." She asked, clinging at straws to keep him there.

"I eat. Just not around here." He answered, keeping his answers blunt and to the point, trying to leave.

Finally she cracked. She had to make sure that the young man before her knew he had people here who were willing to look after him, maybe no as willing as the people he had back in the future, but that he had something left nonetheless.

"You can talk to us, you know? About this I mean." She said, hoping that enough of his guards were still disabled enough to let her words sink in. "You're not as alone as you think."

Chris stopped for a moment, showing no outward sign that he'd heard her. He sighed and bowed his head. It was several minutes before he next spoke.

"Does it ever get easier?" He asked, his voice now displaying some of the underlying emotional storm she knew must still be raging within him.

Taking a breath, and choosing her words carefully, she answered him. "I think you already know that Chris, but no, it doesn't stop hurting, but you will find a way to live, or at least function, even through the pain. I don't think there is all that much more I can tell you that you don't already know yourself."

Chris took a deep breath himself, "Yeah, I figured you'd say something like that."

She looked regretfully down at the tabletop before she asked, "How are you holding up?"

"I don't know," He replied. "I really don't know. I have no idea how I'm holding up right now. I was going to marry her, we were gonna be a family. Now all that's gone. She was the best friend I ever had; she was always there whenever I needed her. She was the one constant I've had in my life for over ten years now."

Somehow, he just realized, he'd made his way over to the kitchen table and sat down in the middle of his musing, and now rested his head in his hands, gathering his thoughts. He gulped, again feeling the assault of torture upon his soul.

"It hurts. It hurts so much. I've never felt anything like this before and I have no idea how to handle it. I just want it to stop. It hasn't even been 24 hours and already I can't take much more of this. Guess that shows how weak I am, huh? Can't even handle feelings passed a certain point."

"No. You are not weak Chris." Piper said, shocked at his comment. "You are anything but weak. If you were as weak as you say you would've orbed off as soon as you got the chance, you wouldn't be admitting to what you're going through now. You would be out there trying to hide yourself from the pain, trying to forget what's happened. If anything you're the strongest person I know, Chris. Do not tell yourself otherwise."

Chris lifted his head and looked at her, surprised at this sudden vote of confidence.

"You really think I'm that strong?" He asked, shock lacing his tone.

"Yes I do." She replied, strength trickling through in her voice.

A silence suddenly fell over the kitchen as the words that were just exchanged were taken in, each trying to find solid ground on this alien terrain. Piper was the one to stabilize herself first, repeating her earlier question.

"Want some breakfast?"

An offer the witchlighter was unable to bring himself to decline a second time, leaving the two to eat in a not exactly comfortable, but far from difficult, silence.

_**Why don't you hear me when I'm calling out to you (to you)  
Why don't you listen when I try to make it through (to you)  
Goodbye, goodbye  
Goodbye, you never know  
Hold a little tighter  
4 AM forever...**_

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Thank you so much for reading this, it's taken me a very long time to get this piece finished, and I would really love to know what you guys think, so please leave a little review._**


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